Skip to main content
Announcing GCN Classic Migration Survey, End of Legacy Circulars Email. See news and announcements

GCN Circular 20378

Subject
Swift Trigger 730513 is not an astrophysical event
Date
2017-01-06T08:56:53Z (8 years ago)
From
David Palmer at LANL <palmer@lanl.gov>
P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB),
K. L. Page (U Leicester), D. M. Palmer (LANL) and
B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU) report on behalf of the Swift Team:

At 08:31:01 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) detected a
peak in a waiting mode image at a location near to the known 
source SS Cyg (trigger=730513).  Swift slewed immediately to the location. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 325.783, +43.422 which is 
   RA(J2000) = 21h 43m 08s
   Dec(J2000) = +43d 25' 17"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve shows no obvious activity. 

The XRT began observing the field at 08:33:34.4 UT, 152.9 seconds after
the BAT trigger. No source was detected in 461 s of promptly downlinked
data. 

UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 250 seconds with the U filter starting
153 seconds after the BAT trigger. No credible afterglow candidate has been
found in the initial data products. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image covers 25% of the
BAT error circle. The typical 3-sigma upper limit has been about 19.2 mag. The
8'x8' region for the list of sources generated on-board covers 100% of the BAT
error circle. The list of sources is typically complete to about 18.0 mag. No
correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of
0.46. 

Swift followed up on this image peak despite its low significance 
(5.9 sigma) due to its rough proximity to a known source.  
However, the 10 arcmin offset is well outside the error radius
for this point source.  This, combined with the lack of an BAT
rate trigger or an X-ray detection, leads us to conclude that this
was a statistical fluctuation in the image plane and not
an astrophysical event.
Looking for U.S. government information and services? Visit USA.gov